Real estate seems to have always been a curious game. Local headlines show of a gentleman having his house foreclosed on after failing to pay less than $150 in taxes. Somehow it’s more effective/efficient/logical/profitable to go through the entire repossession and sale process than work directly with a guy to get the outstanding $150. How that can be I don’t quite understand.
Knocking down a few lightly used warehouse/storage facilities and razing some leaning trees and scruffy grass to put up a multi-use commercial/residential mid/high-rise (a couple blocks from me) makes sense. That I understand.
Building an anchor grocery in a shopping plaza with 160+ auto parking spaces (a few reserved for Zip Cars!) without a single cart corral confuses me. It can’t be about chewing into the parking spaces; rarely is every single one of them full; only during the most peak of shopping hours does that happen. It can’t be about lost revenue from the parking meters in said 160 spots. With the first 60 minutes of parking free (push a button to fire up a free 60 on the meter) the vast majority of shoppers are in and out before the meter needs plugged. So why no corral(s)?
Instead we see random carts left in singles, doubles and triples in the middle of auto spaces, hooked on the edge of curbs and trees and randomly leaning against parking meters scattered throughout the lot. Each of which, naturally, has to be individually gathered and woven throughout cars and curbs to be pushed back to the store. I’m in a position to frequent the grocery at off-peak hours and almost never see anyone push back their own cart. Instead an hourly staffer is constantly wandering the entire lot vs. making a couple stops at designated corrals.
We’re a walkable neighborhood; everyone walks. Which explains why a few spaces are consistently available in the lot in a densely populated area with thousands of apartments. I’ve wondered if the store felt folks would A) never use carts since most of us walk or B) be nice enough to walk them back to the store after drivers unloaded them. Taking a look at B; this is a city where folks grumble when we must wait more than five minutes for a train and seemingly 1/2 the cyclists completely ignore both stop signs and stop lights rather than safely wait the extra minute.
How about a sense of obligation? Responsibility? Simple care-factor? This is a city with multiple appearances on Top 10 Mean/Rude cities reports. Counting on us to care is clearly not going to cut it. It must be felt that even if a couple well marked corrals were built that folks would still not use them if it meant walking more than just a few feet.
Born and raised in the upper Midwest and having lived in multiple Midwest states I cast my vote on the care-factor. Or lack thereof. Here I find myself repeatedly looking folks in the eyes and giving a nod or even a Hello! simply to get an acknowledgement.
I believe a similar parking lot and cart system in Omaha, Nebraska or Dubuque, Iowa would result in many more carts being walked back to the store–or better yet; likely result in several customers making the request of the store to install a couple corrals. Here I suppose folks are happy to not have a corral option so they can mimic their neighbor and leave the cart slowly meandering along the curb selected as its temporary resting spot.
I might say something to the store management myself–but after a couple episodes of the Automatic Door Closed Until 7:00a.m. still being closed at nearly 7:30a.m. I doubt they much care.
AniMal